


Gally's Confession

by golddragon



Category: The Maze Runner Series - All Media Types
Genre: Confessions, Feelings, Film Representation of Characters, Fluff, Gally didn't start out as bad as he turned out, M/M, Newt is a poor confused baby with fluffy hair, Wordcount: 1.000-3.000
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-13
Updated: 2014-10-13
Packaged: 2018-02-21 01:46:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,428
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2450117
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/golddragon/pseuds/golddragon
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Newt is working alone in the vegetable gardens when it happens. Honestly? He doesn’t expect it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Gally's Confession

**Author's Note:**

> Based on the characters as they're portrayed in the film rather than the book, in which I found Gally much more relatable and Newt decidedly more fluffy. This is set about a year and a half before Thomas gets to the glade.

Newt’s working alone in the vegetable gardens when it happens. Honestly? He doesn’t expect it. 

“Newt?” The voice is uncertain and a good deal softer than he is used to, but Newt recognizes it. On his knees in the dirt he turns and rests his trowel on one knee, other hand shading his face. His brown eyes scrunch again the sun. 

“All right, Gally?” 

The Keeper of the Builders is standing about five feet to his left, hands clenching and unclenching uneasily at his sides. His broad shoulders are drawn up and tense and his blue eyes are fixed on Newt’s with an intensity that makes Newt feel slightly uncomfortable. He shifts from foot to foot and the suns flashes behind his figure as he moves. 

Gally’s been a Glader for four months now, and a couple weeks ago took over Stephen’s position when he died of the black 'flu. Newt'd been the one to show him around when he first arrived: the guy who’d come up in the box had been unexpectedly big, tall and broad in a way that Newt could appreciate but had learnt to be wary of. He'd also had surprisingly agile hands and an earnestness you didn’t see much of amongst the Greenies or even in the rest of the shuck-faces in the Glade these days. 

Newt had liked him straight away. He'd been willing to learn and was an open sort of guy, happy when Alby had assigned him to the builders. Built like he was Gally had fit right in, the strength for the tasks set for him coming to him easily. 

The two had talked a little since then, the conversation always relaxed and uncomplicated. Simple. Easy. Nice. Whilst sometimes it seemed like Gally sought out his company, appearing behind his shoulder at random, surprising times, unlike some of the other boys Gally'd never demanded anything of him and Newt had learnt to accept his sporadic recurring appearances in his daily routine. 

Now Gally seems nervous. Awkward, even, which is a weird look for him. Not open like before, and definitely not brash or loud (as he has a tendency to be). Newt feels a tinge of worry curl in at the sides of his mind. 

“What is it? Has someone been hurt?” He keeps his thoughts calm; if someone had been hurt the Builder wouldn’t just be standing there. He’d be rushing to fetch Newt to The Homestead.

Gally shifts his feet. His eyes dart to the ground and then up again.

Unless…

A bolt of panic shoots Newt in the chest and he scrambles to his feet. “Wait! Has someone…?!” He demands, body shaking. Alby, Al- “Has… Has somebody died?” 

“No.” Gally looks down at him, words shattering his panic.

Adrenaline still pumps through his body and Newt sucks in a whooshing breath. He shoves at Gally’s chest, uncharacteristically angry. The Glader’s body is firm beneath his hands.

“Bloody hell, you slinthead, you made me think someone had kicked it!” He forces himself to exhale, cursing, and runs a shaky hand down his face before pushing it through his hair. He knows that it’s sticking up in red tufts but he doesn't care. Shuck-face. 

Gally stares, following the movement of his hand, and then his eyes drop. 

Newt huffs impatiently. “So what is it then?! Come on. You done something wrong? Messed something up?” He puts his hands on his hips, fixing Gally with a stare, and then relents and softens a little. “You can tell me, you know.”

There are a few beats of silence. “I need to talk to you.” Gally’s eyes are stuck immobile on a clump of klunking grass at Newt’s feet. 

“No duh." He rolls his eyes. "Out with it, then.” 

Gally ignores the insult. He looks at Newt and their eyes meet for a second and he can see the other boy take a deep breath. Newt is struck with the realisation that for someone so big Gally looks almost scared of a person with a gimpy leg like him. 

The other boy opens his mouth and seems to force words out of it before he can take them back, squeezing his fists as if he's going to explode. 

“I… I like your hair.” 

It’s Newt’s turn to stare. What? “Uh…”

“I want to push my hand through it. Your hair, I mean.” The Builder has flushed a fiery crimson, the colour blossoming up his neck from beneath his shirt. “I want to touch the fuzzy red stuff, the bit at the back of your neck.” Gally breathes in deeply. “I have to keep stopping myself from doing it,” he admits, staring intently at a scraggly patch of grass.

Has the Glader gone mad? Newt looks around to check if anyone else is seeing this. "Gally?" He asks uncertainly. 

“I like the way your shirt matches matches. It's orange too, nearly like your hair, and your eyes, they’re brown - I mean, I know you know that they’re brown, but I like that." 

“Hey, Gally -” Newt says slowly. He really is wondering if the other boy's gone mad - he's babbling. Newt doesn't know what to do so he ends up taking a step back. Gally ploughs on anyway.

“I like the look you get on your face when you’re concentrating, when your eyebrows are all lowered and scrunched together like this.” Gally points to his own screwed up eyebrows, demonstrating and Newt resists a bizarre urge to laugh. “I like it when you chew your lips too.”

He takes a step forward. Newt doesn’t move. Gally spreads his hands, demonstrating, and now it all seems to come out in a rush. “I like the way you’re smaller than me, skinny but strong-” Newt remains silent “-and how I can stand behind you and pretty much completely cover you with my body.” Newt should be insulted, but he shivers instead, and Gally takes another step closer, eyes and hands beseeching. “I like your neck,” he confesses, “how it’s small, too, and white, and I – I imagine the way I’d mark it up - red and purple if I you’d let me.”

Newt’s lips remain resolutely pressed together and he can feel a matching blush creeping up that exact same neck Gally is talking about. 

He’s close now, so close, maybe only a foot away. Gally looks down at Newt. He's so much bigger than Newt, but the type of scared he's feeling isn't the same scared as when a couple of the other Gladers tried to get up in his space. “I like your smarts. I like how you listen to everyone and how you think through your every decision, except when someone’s hurt and then you go crazy. I like that sometimes you get so angry when some shank has done some dong thing to get himself hurt, and I like the way you’re so loyal to Alby, but also the way you can make him question his decisions if you think he’s wrong.”

There’s perhaps a couple inches’ distance between Gally and Newt’s bodies now, and Newt is frozen. His chest is rising and falling in quick succession, heartbeat jumping like a jack-rabbit. Gally is looking at his lips, and his hands are slowly rising, wary, as if trying to calm a spooked animal. 

“I like the way you looked after me when I was just a know-nothing Greenie, fresh from the Box - even though I became a builder: good with my hands but not so much going on upstairs.” Gally’s lips quirk as he quotes one of Newt’s own oft repeated lines back at him. He is confident now, more relaxed, powered by his conviction in what he is saying. His voice has gained strength throughout his speech. 

“I like the way you smile when you’re happy, when the Runners get back safe from the maze at the end of each day - the way these creases at your mouth appear and how your eyes light up after you’ve drunk too much of that drink I brew.” He says this softly. 

A large, rough-skinned hand comes up to rest a thumb on Newt’s chin, briefly tracing where said creases would be, and Newt flinches, unused to gentle touches. The hand, calloused from work, tilts his face up to Gally’s, and Newt’s fierce brown eyes meet the other boy’s. He looks amused. He looks serious too somehow. His eyes are sincere. 

He drops his face so that their noses are touching. 

Newt sucks in a quiet breath. 

“I like you.” 

And he kisses him.


End file.
